Note: Spoilers for Spec Ops: The Line, Bioshock, and The Walking Dead: The Game follow.

Go back and re-read my review of Max Payne 3. In that review, I wrote briefly about the maturation of video games, and ever since writing that piece, the idea of a mature video game landscape has been a theme that has intrigued me.

To be clear, I'm not speaking about an M-rated video game when I talk about mature games. In fact, I would argue that many M-rated games are the exact opposite of mature. Games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 carry the M-rating due to graphic violence and language, while other games like the entire Grand Theft Auto franchise wallow about in sex, drugs, and crime. Yes, these are indeed games to keep away from your young children, but perhaps the "mature" tag is unfitting. What about solving your problems with a bullet is mature?

A prime example of the mature game that came out in 2012 is Telltale Games' The Walking Dead: The Game. While blood and guts are a mainstay (as is foul language) in any zombie epic, what most fans will remember in 10 years about The Walking Dead is the relationship between Clementine and Lee. Players are asked to make decisions in The Walking Dead based on various aspects that one would expect to approach in a zombie apocalypse, but the fact that a young girl is following you and relying on you adds extra weight to each decision. Telltale Games rarely asks you to take care of Clementine and it rarely asks you to even care about her, but thanks to some of the best writing to ever grace video games, you just do. You can't help but love Clementine. Any decision you're asked to make in the game is one that is not only for yourself, but for a young girl that relies upon you.

This added weight of having to care for another individual carries the game into what I would consider mature video game territory, and not just a mature story. Your actions in the game affect other people, several of which are children. This is opposed to watching a cut-scene where the character has a child and does things to help their child. That difference is the distinction of how video games can be different from movies and literature; how interactivity can provide you with a much stronger emotional connection and reaction to the events transpiring before you.

Spec Ops: The Line is another game that asks gamers to really question what they're doing in games. For the majority of the game you are tasked with mowing down leagues of enemies, and sometimes innocent civilians if that means the job gets done. The end of the game, without spoiling too much, asks you why, and that question is ultimately the most adult situation ever faced in a modern military shooter. But the asking of why does not intend to relate to real-life; this is not necessarily an anti-war video game. By forcing you into situation where you must shoot, grenade, and knife your way to safety, you have played into what every shooter has asked you to up to this point. And did you for one moment even question what you were doing? Of course not, and that is why Spec Ops: The Line is brilliant.

By taking a step back from the game, it makes a similar play to what Bioshock did several years before. It aims to point out how video games are so flawed; that objective based gameplay is broken in nature. How interactive is a game if you're told where to go, what to do, who to kill, and how to do it? Andrew Ryan's famous "would you kindly..." is simply an imitation of every games mission-based layout. Spec Ops' finale reveals much about the central character's motives and mental well-being, and how that directly affects the previous 6 hours of the game. Spec Ops and Bioshock both take a decidedly different turn on how a mature video game should be by investing it's time and efforts into criticizing the very medium itself.

To come full circle, this brings me back to my criticism of Max Payne 3, and maybe more appropriately Rockstar Games' entire catalog. While I can't say that these games aren't fun, I can argue that they're not as mature as they intend to be. These games are generally more interested in violence and sex than important issues (even if they're only important within the gaming community). And even though Niko Belic's story touches on American opinions about immigration and the American Dream, these genuinely interesting ideas are often-times overshadowed by the more bombastic habits that these series fall back on. Max's drug and alcohol were profoundly interesting themes, but were ultimately deterred by the fact that he mercilessly kills thousands of enemies. The weight of murder never once weighs heavily on Max.

Mature video games, I believe, are about to turn a major corner. The success of The Walking Dead: The Game will undoubtedly be felt for years to come. Hopefully we'll see more games that are more interested in grand and socially important themes, or games that invest in decisions that not only affect the player, but people around him. We've got a lot of growing up to do, gamers.

Note: I was going to put in some Hyperlinks, but for whatever reason, I am unable to use them right now... Maybe I'll be able to fix it in the future, but here is a short list of relative links.

Several months back, in my review of Max Payne 3, I spoke briefly about how that series had represented a maturation of storytelling in games. Max Payne 3 walked the line between the ultra-violent, kill everything mentality of games that we're used to, and the more philosophical side of stories that are much more present in film and literature than it has ever been in gaming. 2K Games' Spec Ops: The Line walks a similar line, focusing on the mental toll that violence has on an individual. Sure, gameplay is familiar and pretty stale, but the plot takes the front seat and drives this game home.

Spec Ops: The Line feels like the first anti-war video game. While the game is openly inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam flick Apocalypse Now, it's not a straight-up adaptation. The story, which is about a small band of U.S. soldiers, led by Captain Martin Walker, in search of "The Damned 33rd" (a group of American soldiers led by Colonel Konrad) in a Dubai that has been absolutely destroyed by sandstorms, offers many twists and surprises, perhaps the most surprising is the way in which the game deals with war and violence.

Spec Ops: The Line features some truly disturbing images.

Previous modern military shooters, such as Battlefield, Medal of Honor, and Call of Duty, heroicize nearly every action done by the United States' military, rarely questioning the mental anguish a soldier may feel for taking a life. Have you ever accidentally (or purposefully) killed a civilian in Medal of Honor? At most, a game may force you to restart the mission and yell at you, but Spec Ops doesn't end the mission. You kill the person, and you move on. Lugo or Adams (your companions) may be upset, but the game assumes you made the best decision for the mission. It's a strange feeling. Your character is detached from any sort of hierarchy and thus no one is present to stop him. You won't have someone yelling in your ear telling you where to go and what's not okay to do, but instead you have one mission and you must complete it in any way possible.

As mentioned earlier, the plot takes some interesting twists and turns, but more importantly it explores some dark areas that I've rarely seen games approach. Decisions aren't made because one is evil and one is good; decisions are made because one makes more sense in completing the objective. Sure, it sucks when the enemy kills a half dozen citizens so you can save one CIA agent, but who is more important to the mission? Choices like this don't occur often enough, which is a shame because they're some of the most gut-wrenching decisions I've had to make while playing video games. It isn't about being the good guy or the bad guy, but minimizing collateral damage. It's something our own soldiers have to think about, and I'm glad my decisions only effect a few pixels.

Walker makes some big decisions and kills many people on his way to his objective. It's gruesome and the ending only drives home the game's biggest goal, which is to make us question U.S. actions in the middle east and how much trust we should instill in certain individuals. Frankly, it's a topic that I'm surprised hasn't ignited the media into a frenzy, but I'm happy to see that it hasn't. Here we have a game that is dealing with serious real-world issues that aren't always issues we want to talk about. Video games have put off discussing issues such as this in a serious manner because, as the controversy with the newest Tomb Raider has shown, the general public isn't ready for our favorite medium to delve into such scary waters. Games have been politically driven in the past, but rarely do they question institutions like the U.S. military from the perspective of a U.S. soldier. Film has been able to do this for decades now, and, although Spec Ops lacks much subtlety, it's certainly refreshing to see a game not shy away from such a hot topic.

But, since this is a video game, we have to talk about the gameplay. Frankly, it's just not that impressive. It controls almost exactly like every third-person shooter that has been released since Gears of War utilized the cover mechanic so well and, although you can use some of the environment to your benefit, the game ultimately plays like a 4 or 5 year old shooter. The graphics are pretty, but in today's day-and-age, pretty just won't cut it. Walker, Lugo, and Adams, visually speaking, are about as unappealing as any character over the last several years and, although voice-acting is pretty damn good, the rest of the sounds are pretty mundane. Even the explosions are boring to look at. One thing that the game does do that is interesting is sandstorms. They make it difficult to see, and even harder to shoot. Also, the game is really difficult, which is completely different from the other major players on the market.

I didn't have a chance to check out multiplayer (apparently no one plays the PC version online), so I have no words on that. But this doesn't effect my review. The bottom line is this: Spec Ops features the best plot of any modern military shooter, but suffers from boring gameplay. I hope the plot sparks some debate in the community about where games should be going. I have little doubt that within the next five years, we'll see more and more games that aren't afraid to tackle such controversial themes.